Sowing my first flower seeds!
Prize-winning veg from the allotment and a smaller garden in greater Manchester with impressive summer bedding.
We’ve had rain practically every day for the last fortnight so the ground is too wet to do any digging and weeding. Before this wet spell I weeded all the veg beds and the spray chrysanth bed on the allotment, but I still have the dahlia and cut flower beds to do.
I want to order a load of manure soon. The cut flower beds don’t get manured, but I need to do the dahlia beds first when we get some dry weather.
I’ve picked the last of the Brussels sprouts and disposed of the plants. I also brought home the last leeks but we still have some cabbages, turnips, swedes and beetroot to keep us going.
I pruned my roses at home in December but I’ve recently pruned those on the allotment and some for a friend. On the allotment, I’ve a row of hybrid teas and one of floribundas. In the greenhouse I’ve taken a lot of chrysanth cuttings and put them on my propagators and will continue taking them until March. They’re prone to white rust, so I spray the stools and cuttings about every two weeks with a fungicide.
I sowed the large onions last month and they’ll soon be ready for transferring to small pots. I use small yoghurt pots.
I’ve also sown my first flower seeds – four varieties of lobelia (two bedding and two trailing), three varieties of asters, and one of petunias and penstemons. They’ve all germinated and are now out of the propagator.
I’ve finished washing all my plant pots. I believe very muchin cleanliness, starting the new season with a clean greenhouse, clean trays and clean pots.
I’ve recently been to a social evening of a choir that I belong to. People were giving their ‘party pieces’, so I told the story of how I won the Garden News Mastermind of Gardening in 1984 by correctly answering 19 questions in two minutes, the highest score anyone has ever got in a single round. I also took the trophy along to show them!